Category: Fun & Games

Christmas Came Early

Posted on2 Comments

Joe and I decided to exchange gifts this morning since we’ll be at my parent’s tonight and the kids are coming over tomorrow morning. Check out the cool stuff I got!

Xmas gifts from my husband

I am currently ripping my new CDs to add to my iPod. :)

Xmas gifts I bought my husband

I got Joe some cool stuff too. Of course he got the newest upgrade to World of Warcraft. That goes without saying really. But my surprise gift to him was the SanDisk Sansa Clip 4MB MP3 player. He’s been using his old Sony MiniDisc player when he works out in the mornings and it sucks because it is by no means easy to put new music on those discs. The Sansa is literally drag and drop. It’s quite powerful for its size and was on sale for $35 on Black Friday, so I had to get it. I was considering an iPod shuffle but this little thing is definitely an iPod killer; when it comes to the shuffle anyway. It has a screen, for one, plus an FM player (which for my husband is perfect since he loves flipping through radio stations), and it holds a lot more songs for less than the price of a shuffle. I would have gotten one for the boy too but you know how kids are – if it’s not an iPod it’s not cool. Luckily Joe was as excited to get it as I was to give it to him. He already had it out of the box before I got a chance to take a picture! I had to kinda put the box together to get one.

If our gifts don’t seem like much to some it’s because we set a limit of $100 each. That’s just how we do things. We spend more on the kids because we don’t really buy them lots of toys throughout the year. When both of us were growing up, even if our families didn’t have a lot of money, Christmas was the one time during the year you got lots of cool presents. I can’t wait to see the kids open their presents tomorrow!

Party

Posted on2 Comments

Our party last night was a complete success!

Our first guests arrived around 5:40 pm, and our last guests (the same couple, actually) left at 2:40 am. Everyone stayed a long time, even the older couples who were here for four hours. I don’t think you stay at a party that long unless you’re having fun. After the two older couples left, we played Pictionary, or more like drunken Pictionary since a few people were lit (my husband being one of them). My team won, of course. Joe’s did not. Haha.

Everyone was so nice, bringing us gifts, which I was not expecting. And since this likely will become an annual event with the same guests, I’ve made notes for next year:

We don’t need: Diet Coke, pies, cupcakes, or a cheese ball since they weren’t touched.
We do need: more celery, believe it or not!

I will give Joe credit – people ate a lot more food than I was expecting. And my homemade oatmeal chocolate chip cookies were a hit.

The couple who stayed the longest, K&E, are really nice and live close by; they go to Bingo the same weeks we do. They helped us clean up after everyone left which was awesome and left us very little to do this morning other than vacuum and put all the alcohol away. I think we may have found someone to play board games with too. I am very excited since I only get to play when I go to my parents.

I’m really happy everything went so well. And also pretty tired and betting I’m going to have a hell of a time going to sleep at a decent hour tonight. But it was totally worth it.

The password is…

Posted on

We spent a good chunk of change this weekend. Damn you, holidays! I already got a few gifts for the kids and Joe’s coworkers out of the way, though.

Yesterday we went to a party store to get some plastic wine glasses and a few other supplies. There’s a Petland nearby, and while I’d never actually buy an animal from them, I like how you can touch most of them. There were a ton of little ferrets in one of the bins and they were massively entertaining. If you hung your arm over, they’d take a flying leap in an attempt to crawl up your arm. We probably spent 20 minutes watching and interacting with them. Joe was able to pick a few up so we could pet them. They were really calm and not at all like our hamster, Oreo, who starts screaming the minute she’s picked up, as if we’re trying to take her limbs off. In fact the ferrets didn’t make any noise at all. I’m considering getting one. They’re still no match for a cat, but they might be ok with the boy’s allergies and they are really fun to watch. A friend of ours has a ferret, so I’d like to see one in a home environment first. I just know I’m done with hamsters.

New board games Today we did our grocery shopping. Target had board games on sale, so we bought three: Trivial Pursuit 25th Anniversary Edition, Buzzword, and Wits & Wagers.

I’m bringing them all to my parents’ for Thanksgiving. I am a sucker for games, and they all look so fun, I don’t know which one I will want to play first! Well, maybe not Trivial Pursuit. I have a love/hate relationship with that game. We own four versions now and I never know the answers to any of the questions. We got this new one since it has different levels of difficulty. Maybe if I play on easy I’ll be able to successfully answer a question or two. The price couldn’t be beat on any of these games. Trivial Pursuit and Wits & Wagers were each $20 and Buzzwords was $15; I think all three normally go for $30+.

When we got home and I started putting the groceries away, I noticed the expiration on the bacon in the fridge was today, so we decided to have BLTs. Just a small problem – no tomato or lettuce. So off to the produce market we ran to pick up some stuff, including potatoes for the roast Joe has in the crockpot. As we’re driving away from the store, I realized we forgot the lettuce! So we stopped at Dominick’s to get that. I swear I never thought it would be so difficult to put together a BLT! Now I have to go eat one.

Party Planning Follow-up

Posted on

Hey thanks for the advice everyone, especially about the ice because I did not think about that! My husband mentioned the no shoes thing to a few of the people he was inviting and they seemed fine with it, so we added it to the invitation just so no one is thrown off guard and shows up with holes in their socks or something. The invitations were passed out today and he said people are pretty excited. That’s always nice to hear. I am predicting we’ll have a good time. I’m really looking forward to it. I requested the Friday before off from work so we can clean the house real good and put up the Christmas tree and decorations.

Party Planning

Posted on4 Comments

My husband decided he wants to throw a Christmas party for his coworkers. We’ve never thrown a real party before, but we have hosted game nights. I’m pretty nervous, yet excited. I’m trying to think of everything we need. So far we’ve got:

styrofoam bowls (in red)
paper plates
napkins
plastic cups (also in red)
lazy susan (already owned this)
two 3-section snack trays (one in red, one in green) for nuts and candy
chip/dip serving platter (in red)
three kinds of crackers
cheeseball
mini wieners
chips
black olives
salsa
alcohol
ingredients to bake cupcakes and cookies
invitations, which are getting passed out this week

Items we still need:

festive tablecloth
gift cards
nuts
veggies (celery, carrots)
cheese tray
cheese knife (for cheese ball)
chicken wings (will get these fresh the day of the party)
mozzarella sticks
bagel bites
pop (in 2-liters)
utensils
toothpicks
a pie (or two)

My husband wants to make sure no one goes hungry. It’s a pet peeve of his when the food supply is depleted before the party ends. We’re expecting about 12 people so I think that’s more than enough; in fact I’m willing to bet we’ll have lots of leftovers.

For entertainment we’ve got board games, cards, the Wii, and music of course.

I’m a bit torn whether to ask that people take their shoes off, or just grin and bear it, then shampoo the carpets after. We don’t wear shoes in our house but some people do and might find it offensive to be asked to remove their shoes. I’ve searched online and that didn’t really help; some people think it’s poor etiquette to ask people to remove their shoes whereas other people figure if it’s your house you have every right. I’m still not sure what to do in regards to that.

Other than that, I think we’ll be prepared to have a great party. Am I missing anything?